AFR’s accidental freebies

A potentially expensive production mistake hasn’t helped the Australian Financial Review this morning.

There’s no bar code on the Anzac bumper edition which covers the next four days.

When Dr Mumbo attempted to hand over his $3.50 in Woolies this morning, he was told that as it couldn’t be scanned, he could have it for free. He suspects the same scene is currently playing out across various counters across the country.

8.30am update: It appears some AFR editions have barcodes and some do not. Hat tip: Cara Waters.

All sub-editing flaws. Given the previously excellent quality of the AFR subbing this continuing clusterfork is a sign of bigger problems. The Perth edition front page is plainly a premature ejaculation while the missing bar codes in NSW are plain oversight. And this done by the team in NZ that us taking over all the rest of Fairfax subbing !!! Hate to imagine what goes online.

A bit rich to blame the New Zealand sub-editors. My understanding is they only do the copy subbing. The design, including the front page, is done in-house in Sydney. The bigger problem, and the common factor here is “the Johnstone Press publishing model”. The same sort of problem, right down to the publishing and printing of an incomplete front page has happened in recent years at that company’s British papers. It has also led to the decline of that company. Under this model sub-editors simply work the copy before the design happens at the masthead using graphic artists, with quality control purely the preserve of the top editorial team. From what I hear on the grapevine, Fairfax should take a hard look at the shoddy production processes they copied from this firm – and perhaps also at the executives who punted that as an acceptable route forward.